Most Twitter users never tweet, don’t follow anyone

Twitter may be gaining new users at the speed of light, but more than half of …

A new report about how the majority of the population uses Twitter reveals that most people, well... don't really use it. The microblogging service has grown exponentially over the last year, but a little more than half of its users have never sent a single tweet, according to the latest report from HubSpot (PDF). The report reminds us that, like many Web services, much of the content is produced by a small number of users while everyone else likes to look in and watch.

According to HubSpot's analysis of Twitter's 4.5 million accounts, 54.9 percent of users have never tweeted and 52.7 have no followers whatsoever. This doesn't actually surprise most of us who do use Twitter—a number of our friends and colleagues have joined the service but don't actively participate in it, therefore netting them a big fat goose-egg in terms of followers (why would anyone follow you if you don't tweet?).

What's more perplexing, however, is that 55.5 percent of Twitter users don't follow anyone else. This finding sums up the quintessential "Internet User Who Joins Service And Then Quits Immediately" stereotype, though the ones who don't follow anyone aren't necessarily the ones that aren't tweeting. HubSpot said that only 9.06 of all Twitter users are categorized as "inactive" (those with fewer than 10 followers, fewer than 10 people they're following, and fewer than 10 updates). This makes the usage statistics slightly less puzzling, though Managing Editor Eric Bangeman's account is basically inactive, yet he doesn't satisfy any of those requirements with his 140 followers. Needless to say, there are a lot of users who aren't making very frequent use of Twitter.

HubSpot's data supports findings from Hitwise in 2007 saying that a large majority of Web users like to sit on the sidelines, especially when it comes to user-generated content. At that time, Hitwise said that only 0.16 percent of YouTube's total traffic was made up of users who uploaded videos; the same applied to photo sharing site Flickr (0.2 percent), and even Wikipedia remained relatively low with only 4.59 percent of users being active participants.

Of those who do use Twitter, the average user tweets almost once daily (0.97, to be exact), and has tweeted a total of 119.34 times over the lifetime of his or her account. HubSpot found, however, many aren't doing a good job of telling others who they are. Only 24.14 percent have a bio in their profiles and 31.32 percent have entered a location. (As we pointed out in our guide to winning Twitter followers, even a simple bio is essential.) It's clear that those who are participating in Twitter are essentially doing so for the edification (and entertainment?) of others, so we advise that if you're putting on a show for the voyeurs, telling them who you are and why they should follow you is a good first step to gaining the loyal Internet fanbase that you know you're dying to build.

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui

Maybe its because when half the people sign up they realise that 99% of the "content" is inane one-liner unimportant drivel about the minutiae of people's lives. I really don't care what you ate for lunch or what album you're listening to.

I totally get the people that just login. Whenever a hot new service comes in, I frequently will log in to secure my user name, even if I have no long-term plans to use the service.

I just hate other people using my username, especially when I've been unique for so long. It's a losing fight, and there are others with my handle, but I'm still pretty much every top result when searched, so I'll settle for that.

My coworker was REALLY excited by twitter.. for about a week. This seems to be the norm for most people I know, so I guess I'm not really surprised. A lot of these social things are kind of neat, but in the long run I find little of value.

I hope it dies a miserable death along along with this fad for tech enabled navel gazing narcissism. If only facebook/myspace could join them (fat chance ha) then the world would be a much better place.

On second thoughts, the concept has many uses no doubt (e.g. using it like a form of RSS, hooking other automated services to act upon twitter updates etc.) so I take that back, but the sentiment is there.

Wait, if the twitter USERS die then there you go, preserve the utility of a tech service AND people get their comeuppance. perfect

The definitions are bad. I'm on twitter. I follow less than 10, I never tweet and have no followers, but I would consider myself an active user. Why? I follow about a half dozen bike racers that tweet their results and and conditions. Its the only place I can find that stuff, and it is great. There is nothing special about twitter in this case except it lets the guys use their phones to quick throw things up, and lets me track them.

Technology is all about furthering man's ability to get stuff done. At least the way I see it. If you're the guy that creates something that has the least amount of features and abilities and you're the one being chosen by the masses, at the very least you know they're not terribly discriminating now don't you. Then, you should probably be scared. If utility was the factor, Rejaw, Jaiku or something else might have been the winner. Still, if its about technology, then winning would matter more, if you're the coder anyway. Twitter's a cool service as far as being able to get out message to groups of people or even syndicate the message, but its lack of capability from Twitter's own site is galling.

I don't want a loyal internet fanbase. I am not interesting. I want to be part of the loyal internet fanbase of people who ARE interesting. Yes, such people exist, and some of them use Twitter. I can totally understand why so many people think Twitter is stupid, but I've made it useful to me. Everyday, it gives me comments and links that people I find interesting, informative, or funny have posted, and I don't have to go to 50 different sites to find them all.

And I feel like I should be able to do that without talking about the sandwich I had for lunch and people following me for updates about each bite.

I think the whole "status update" thing is more of a trend than a fad to be honest. It's a way of connecting with people in a way we've never seen before, especially when it comes from automated services such as what game you're playing on Xbox Live or what song you're listening too on Last.fm. The way it's currently implemented is certainly not how it will look in 10 years, but I don't think status updates are going away. Twitter and status updates on Facebook are a passive way of texting interesting things to others. I completly agree that most users don't know how to properly use them yet and that is why you see people Twittering about crap no one cares about, but eventually most people will start to use it in a more meaningful way. I think it lets you get the word out about something going on in your life quickly so that you can concentrate on actually calling on the phone or talking in person to the people you really care about. Status updates are for second teir friends for the most part.

For the record, I have tweeted about 100 times, but I fall into the inactive category because I follow less than 10 friends (no I know really uses it).

Guys, I use Twitter but I only follow people I know and News sites. Twitter is actually a great way to get quick news blurbs akin to RSS feeds. I follow, CNN, Fox, CNBC, Ars, TUAW, etc. on Twitter. Couple that with Tweetie on the iPhone and my Mac laptop it's a great way to follow the news without using RSS feeds or actually visiting the sites themselves.

Don't think of Twitter simply as a micro-blogging site to read about the boring details of someone's life. Yes it can certainly be used for that, but not necessarily.

Twitter has its uses. Twitter allows my blog followers to know when I've blogged and if they choose, those updates can be sent to their mobile device, unlike RSS feeds. Twitter allows pre and post blog post commentary from the authors to the readers. Twitter is great for passing around a link to something on the Internet that you find interesting. Twitter has helped me follow more blogs in less time because I no longer have to visit blogs until there's something there to read. If you blog or podcast, you should tweet because it's a push based mechanism for telling your followers that you've said something on your blog.

Twitter is useful. Facebook is useful. For people that have never built an avatar based persona on the Internet, both seem like they overlap because the anonymity of Twitter is not seen as anything different than the confirmed identity within Facebook. In Facebook I am Derek Licciardi and people recognize me as such. On Twitter, I am Kressilac. On Facebook, my friends and family follow me. On Twitter, fans of my company's game concept follow me; two entirely different audiences. When they're the same audience for an author, Twitter tends to be seen as a less functional Facebook hence why some people don't get Twitter.

I created a Twitter account mostly because I wanted to see what the whole site was about. I don't necessarily like Twitter's setup as far as privacy goes (I cannot have my full name blocked from being shown en lieu of just my Username). But, the only people whom I follow and are following me are only family members and friends. I occasionally will look up a random celebrity to see if (s)he has anything interesting to say, but most of what I see on there are re-tweets or replies to specific people which make no sense to the common person whatsoever. It just seems rather convoluted.

I think people who want attention, want to be heard, want to say something will always have a dominant presence on the Internet. Twitter is the current fad and makes it intensely easy to outlet those desires. Personally, I think I *do* have things worth saying and I am an interesting person, but I don't want to just post 144 or less characters in the hopes that someone cares to read/listen. I only want to talk about things that people are interested in talking about as well. So what with the disjointed setup of the Internet in general (as in impersonal), I tend not to say things unless it's in an instance where there's a discussion underway that I've got something to add to--hence posting in forums like this more often than tweeting, blogging, or anything else.

I can see the use in all these online social outlets, I just don't think it caters to the masses' sense of interest beyond that of a yawning novelty.

OMG, you mean people have double-standards?! They desperately wish others would pay attention to their pathetic lives, but don't want to return the favor by giving a crap about someone else's pathetic life? Say it ain't so!

The concept of Twitter is stupid. It's like at work, where you get so involved in maintenance bullshit you no longer have time to do something creative. You can spend so much time twittering about inane bullshit, and find yourself doing so every 5 minutes, that you can't keep focused on a REAL damn task. It's like idiot modders. They want to spend a ton of time talking about a mod they're working on that they don't have enough time to actually work on it.

People who are actually doing productive things with their lives are quiet. They sit in the corner, minding their own business, until one day they show up with something really f'ing cool. Twittering (like constantly checking email or trolling forums ) is an interruption to doing cool things.

Twitter will be officially dead when folks start thinking twittering is a twitterable event.

Originally posted by SpudMuppet:Maybe its because when half the people sign up they realise that 99% of the "content" is inane one-liner unimportant drivel about the minutiae of people's lives. I really don't care what you ate for lunch or what album you're listening to.

The funny part is that to have any meaningful conversations (what they keep advertising twitter as enabling) you have to have followers and to get followers you need content and the easiest way to put up content is to post inane drivel. The service is a catch-22 by design. Why else would Yossarian be forced to twitter about flight formations every day?

I don't understand why you'd sign up for a service before figuring out what it does. You can totally look at people tweeting without having an account, yourself. I can see, on the other hand, people registering just to claim their usernames, or possibly to camp/squat other names.

Every Twitter account has an RSS feed, in case you want updates that way, too, even without signing up. In fact, if you already follow stumblr accounts or other very short blogging services primarily for URL fodder, that's the same thing for which a lot of twits use the service.

I signed up two years ago to catch news feeds and read some of the chatter from TUAW and Ars bloggers, but didn't expect anyone to follow me. However, now I've got about 350 people following (not including spammers I've blocked), and follow around 400 myself, including a lot of news feeds. That puts me in the ~95% percentile of usage, for comparison. Most people say very little, but a few people say a lot more. The wall of text is there when I want it, and recedes when I don't. And it's pretty easy to tune out the minutiae. I've made a few friendly acquaintances this way, some local, so I think overall it works out to my benefit to use it.

I don't get all of the Twitter hate. Sure, some (most?) people use it to post totally useless information. So, don't follow them. Twitter is a great way to share URLs with friends, and to tag URL's into categories. For example, I'm involved in a lot of Drupal development. Keeping an eye on the #drupal search results is a great way to find out the small things people are doing code-wise which don't require a full blog post.

Also, Twitter helps to give control back to the recipients of messages. If I sent 5 URL's a day to friends via email, that would be considered rude. If I sent them via IM, it's a lot more work for me, and doesn't work if they're offline. With twitter, I can post the URL, and anyone following me can do with it as they will, even use a twitter client to filter them out if they want. Or, they can pipe my messages using RSS for even more flexibility.